California Primary Testing Candidates' Fall Strategies

By R. W. APPLE Jr., Special to the New York Times

Published: June 5, 1988

SAN FRANCISCO, June 4—
It was supposed to provide a rousing grand finale to the nominating season, as it has so often done in the past. But with the Presidential candidates in both parties all but chosen, Tuesday's California primary has turned out to be a trial heat for the fall election.

Vice President Bush, who will spend Sunday and Monday campaigning in the Los Angeles area, intends to ''teach California voters that Dukakis is a lot more liberal than most people here think,'' says a spokesman for his campaign. The spring contest may have been dull, says an aide to Gov. Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts, ''but we'll have a fight this fall the likes of which we haven't seen in years.''

Only the backers of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Mr. Dukakis's last active rival for the Democratic nomination, seem to be focusing on the primary here as such; ''we intend to carry California on Tuesday,'' says Rick Roberts, a press spokesman in the candidate's Los Angeles headquarters, and Mr. Jackson is going flat-out in the final hours, whether the polls and the pundits give him a chance or not.

Most don't. Three surveys taken in the last two weeks all show Mr. Dukakis with a lead of at least 20 points. The consensus of political analysts in the state is that Mr. Jackson, who won 21 percent of the vote in California four years ago, should pull in between 30 percent and 35 percent this year - a respectable showing, but certainly not enough to make Mr. Dukakis blink. Low Turnout Is Forecast

The only tiny shadow on the primary-day horizon for the Massachusetts Governor is turnout. With interest lagging in the Presidential race, no real contest for Senate nominations and no fiercely fought ballot propositions, state officials are predicting the lowest turnout on record for a Presidential primary - about 48 percent of registered voters, or about a third of the 18.9 million California adults who are eligible to vote.

In the view of most political experts, low turnouts tend to help Mr. Jackson, whose backers are strongly committed and thus more likely to vote.

Mr. Jackson had hoped to spend $3 million on advertising in California, but has been forced to cut that figure to $500,000, with the hope that last-minute fund raising may make further commercials possible. He has scheduled a 30-minute live television special for a statewide network on Monday night, which would cap a furious final 48 hours of campaigning here.

The Chicago clergyman has dominated local news coverage, using many of the techniques he perfected early in the campaign. Among the attention-grabbers here: spending nights with a Latino family in the San Joaquin Valley and with a black family in a Los Angeles housing project, as well as meeting with members of the Bounty Hunters, a notorious California street gang. Dukakis Interrupts Campaign

Mr. Dukakis has been much less in evidence, although he has spent about 30 days in the state since May 1987. He had only one public appearance this week, a meeting with San Francisco schoolchildren on a beach to discuss the environment, before he canceled a debate with Mr. Jackson in Torrance on Thursday night to return to Boston for his wife's spinal surgery. The Massachusetts Governor is to return Sunday night for a series of three rallies on Monday in San Diego, Los Angeles and in San Jose, just south of San Francisco.

Less than $2 million under the $27.6 million primary spending limit, the Dukakis campaign has scheduled only limited television advertising in the state. It did not begin until this Wednesday, only six days before the balloting.

For Mr. Dukakis, however, the real goal is to bolster his standing in a state that he needs to win perhaps even more than the Vice President does. California's 47 electoral votes, the most of any state, would of course prove invaluable to either, but Mr. Bush is likely to have a more-or-less solid South as a foundation, and Mr. Dukakis starts off with nothing similar. Democrats Last Won in 1964

Democrats have not done well in the Golden State since World War II, carrying it only in 1948, when Harry S. Truman did so despite the presence of Earl Warren, then the Governor, on the Republican ticket, and in 1964, when Lyndon B. Johnson swamped Barry Goldwater here and almost everywhere else.

But Mr. Dukakis begins the campaign for the general election in a strong position. The California Poll, in a survey of 926 voters between May 16 and 23, with a sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points, gave the Democrat a healthy lead over Mr. Bush, 53 percent to 40 percent, with 7 percent undecided.

''Dukakis has a real chance of carrying California,'' said Mervin Field, the independent poll's director. ''Bush has terrific problems in this state: he's carrying a lot of negative baggage from the Reagan Administration, and he, personally, is somehow not at all well liked here.

''With a solid economy, inflation in check and no major international hostilities, George Bush as an incumbent Republican vice president ought to be well ahead of an unknown rival in this state. But it's leaning Democratic, although I still think a disliked and unloved Bush could pull it out in November if he managed to convince the Reagan Democrats to stay with him.''

So far, those swing voters seem to be headed back to the Democratic column. A Los Angeles Times survey conducted between May 11 and 16 showed the following preferences among registered Democrats who said they had supported President Reagan in 1984: Mr. Dukakis 61 percent, Mr. Bush 26 percent, undecided 13 percent. Mr. Field's most recent poll showed roughly similar results.

Mr. Bush's advisers here concede that he has done poorly, and they hope he can start a recovery when he campaigns in Los Angeles on Sunday and Monday. He will try to capitalize on the popularity and the political organization of Gov. George Deukmejian - an approach that will be greatly facilitated by Mr. Deukmejian's decision Friday to abandon a tax ''adjustment'' program that had been universally described as a tax increase program.

Mr. Deukmejian's tax troubles could hardly have helped a candidate whose own strategy is based on an oft-repeated pledge not to raise taxes.